


The Fox's Glove

by seaquestions



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Memory Alteration, Pre-War Cybertron, Unethical Experimentation, y'know. as per the usual in idw transformers.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 13:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18605272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaquestions/pseuds/seaquestions
Summary: In Rodion, where poor mecha often find themselves in trouble whether they look for it or not, Nightbeat and Rung run a little detective agency to help people out.In this first installment, the two investigators have been asked to look into the whereabouts of a missing mech. However, there's more to this case than meets the eye and the pair quickly find themselves embroiled in a bit of a conspiracy…





	The Fox's Glove

**Author's Note:**

> nightrung is good, nightrung is valid, nightrung only has seven works. clearly someone has to step up to the plate here. (lol i'm sorry that it's me. i haven't posted any writing in like. 2 years. i don't super know what i'm doing but i'll do my best!!)

“Well, hello to you too, Nightbeat.”

The mech in question responded by grumbling nonsensical noises and falling face first onto the couch. Rung laughed softly at the sight.

 _Never been a day-cycle mech, that one,_ he thought, while waiting for the energon tea to finish brewing.

It was a quiet morning at the apartment-turned-detective agency. The sun hadn't reached its peak yet, but rays of light still illuminated the living room and kitchen area. It was early enough that very few mecha were driving down the street outside; a couple more hours and the noise would be unbearable. 

For that reason, Nightbeat hated waking up to the sound of busy streets. So, when the topic came up a few weeks ago, Rung suggested waking up earlier, like him. The mech thought it was a brilliant idea and immediately set himself an alarm. 

Coming from the couch, the loud sound of Nightbeat's engine-snores reverberated around the room.

“Perhaps staying in berth for a bit longer would've been better this time.” Rung murmured, pouring two cups of prepared energon tea.

One cup was round and delicate, translucent white and decorated with little patterns and swirls. A gift from an old friend. He added a teaspoon or two of chromium to sweeten the tea.

The other cup was a simple utilitarian cube, used and reused in packaging refined energon. In this one, he added copper flakes. Rung was never a fan of the tangy flavour, but Nightbeat loved it, so it was always added to his shopping list.

Putting the two cups onto a tray, Rung made his way towards the couch, setting the tray down on the little table in front of it.

He tapped his partner's side. “Knock, knock. Wake up, or I'll be forced to sit on your back.”

Nightbeat grumbled but complied, leaving room for Rung to sit down and cuddle up. The former enforcer scratched his chin and picked up his cube, eagerly gulping down his tea.

“Feeling better now?” Rung asked, a hint of playfulness in his voice.

Nightbeat hummed, and nuzzled his partner's cheek.

Through comms, he replied, [Yeah. It's good tea.]

Rung smiled and took a sip from his own cup.

Nightbeat continued, [By the way, I got something for you.]

“Oh?”

[Last night, while we were waiting for our client to show up after we found his pet and you were arguing with him over comms about him not wanting to pay us even though he was clearly super duper rich—]

Rung turned to Nightbeat with an indignant look. “I was not arguing with him and I certainly didn't say _that_ but go on.”

[Well, I came across a vending machine that had your favourite candy in it!]

With a flick of his wrist, Nightbeat took out a few little red boxes out of his subspace and presented them to Rung.

“Oh!”

Rung eagerly took them and looked at the packaging. Indeed, these were Mellorion-Tersak rust sticks, a somewhat obscure brand of candy from Tesk that tended to be hard to find here in Rodion. He could feel himself shaking in excitement already.

“And you found these in a vending machine?”

[Yup! Pretty lucky, huh? I almost got my arm stuck because I was so excited to get them for you. I would've bought more, but I didn't carry enough loose shanix on me.]

Rung opened one of the boxes and started munching on a rust stick. Sweet and savoury, crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. He tilted the box towards Nightbeat, a silent offer that the mech refused, as per the usual. Rung always asked anyways, just to be polite.

[Any appointments today?]

Rung took a second to check his schedule, and shook his head. “No. Which means I'll likely be tagging along again if a client arrives.”

At that exact moment, a loud buzz came from the apartment entrance.

The pair nearly jumped. The timing was eerily perfect. 

Rung set down his candy and stood up, “I'll go get it,” he said.

If it was a client, it would give Nightbeat some time to activate his vocaliser and clean the table up a little bit, at least.

Rung pressed the button on the intercom system, turning on the little video screen. It showed a mech, dark green and indigo with a red visor.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Um,” the stranger said. “Hi. Is this Nightbeat's detective agency? I saw an ad… I really could use some help…”

“Oh, yes, you've come to the right place!” Rung chirped, pressing the button to let them in. “Come on up, it's on the 2nd floor, the first door to the left of the elevator.”

The stranger jumped at the buzz of the front door unlocking, but nodded at the intercom camera and went inside.

From the living room, Nightbeat asked, “Client?”

“I believe so, love.” Rung said as he went to fill another cube of energon tea.

“I should probably be the one to open the door, then.”

With perfect timing again, there was a knock on the door.

While Nightbeat went to greet the mech, Rung set the cube down at the table and adjusted the one customisable armchair that they have for clients; the stranger looked to be on the large side and Rung always thought it was only polite to have accommodations.

Lo and behold, he was correct. The mech that followed Nightbeat towards the seating area was tall and spiky, most definitely a beastformer, perhaps a large alloygator or something similar.

“Here, have a seat, there's a cube on the table for you,” Nightbeat gestured at the chair, “This is Rung, my partner.”

The mech looked at him. “Um. Hi. I'm Jamjaw. Nice to meet you.”

After a quick handshake through comms, the three sat down.

“So,” Nightbeat started, taking out a blank datapads to write on, “Could you explain what brings you here?”

Jamjaw looked at the pair, took a deep in-vent and began talking, “I think my friend went missing. I need you to find him… but I don't know who he is.”

The two investigators shared a look.

“Do elaborate, dear.” Rung said, projecting an encouraging field.

“I've been having these… visions? Memories? It hits me sometimes, I'll just be standing around and then all of a sudden, I zone out and remember something that I don't think I've ever experienced.” Jamjaw traced the seams in their hands. “They always include this mech… He feels familiar, like a really close friend, but it also feels like I've never even seen him before. When I try to label him, I freeze. My processor can't decide between stranger and amica.”

Over private comms, Nightbeat said, [Heeey, this is sounding suspiciously like corrupted memory files. Of the _Institute_ kind.]

[…Indeed.]

Jamjaw continued. “Plus, there's a bunch of stuff in my apartment that I don't remember buying or owning. Beakers and glass dishes and all kinds of tools like that. I'm no scientist. I've got no business having all this equipment. And it's all so tiny. It must be his, he was probably a science mech or something. But when I look at them for too long, my head hurts. Literally.”

“Do you remember what he looked like? Could you describe him to us?” Nightbeat asked.

“Sorta? If I try to remember _exactly_ what he looks like, nothing comes up. I don't even remember his paint job. It's just static.” Jamjaw took a sip of energon. “But I know that he's a beastformer. I'd never be able to live with someone who isn't—no offence—so there's no way he isn't one. And he's small. Definitely a minibot. Maybe a canid or felid, I'm not sure.”

Nightbeat wrote that down. [Well, that's something at least.]

[Hm. It's quite the sloppy job, isn't it? If they were really trying to make someone “disappear”, the Senate wouldn't have left all of the missing mech's belongings intact.]

[I wouldn't know but that sounds about right. We could maybe get a trustworthy mnemosurgeon to recover their memory files. You wouldn't happen to know one, would you?]

Rung nearly laughed. [A _trustworthy_ one? Goodness, no.]

As helpful as it would be to be able to look directly into the memories of a client or a suspect, mnemosurgery was still a “new” technology, used by the Senate, hidden from the people of Cybertron. Not even the Enforcers knew about it. With no laws currently surrounding it, using it was tricky at best. Mnemosurgeons unaffiliated with the Institute were typically hunted down anyway. Nightbeat only knew about it because Rung confided in him first.

Rung knew because… Well. That's irrelevant.

“So, to start, if it's okay, it would be a good idea to search your apartment for clues,” said Nightbeat. “You said he might be a scientist of some kind, that could get us somewhere.”

For a second, Jamjaw visibly tensed when the word “search” was mentioned, but they quickly recovered and replied, “Yeah, you should do that huh. I gotta go to work though, so if you could come later today?”

“That's fine. When are you available…?”

While the two continued to talk, Rung stood up to place the tray of empty cups back into the kitchen. When he returned, he magnified his vision to surreptitiously glance at the back of Jamjaw's neck.

(His spectacles were initially made to compensate for the effects of worn down optical nerves that were too delicate to replace. The zoom function usually comes in handy mostly for fixing model ships… and for this.)

What was curious though, was the lack of evidence on the back of their client's neck. Mnemosurgery left a mark, five little holes where the needles went. Rung looked as hard as he could, but there was nothing. It didn't look like it was covered up or anything.

This meant that either the Institute figured out how to manipulate memories remotely or something else was the cause of Jamjaw's problems. Good grief. Both options were unpleasant to even think about.

Soon, Nightbeat and Jamjaw both stood up.

“Alright, we'll be seeing you again this afternoon then.”

Their client nodded. “Thank you. I didn't want to go to the Enforcers because… Well, I was afraid that they'd brush me off, y'know. For obvious reasons,” they said, gesturing at their more obvious beastformer traits.

Nightbeat shook their hand as they made their way towards the exit. “It's no problem. We will do our best to find your friend.”

Goodbyes and commlines were exchanged as Jamjaw left their apartment.

Nightbeat sat down on the couch again with an ex-vent. Rung followed suit.

[So. We're gonna do further questioning later, at their place. They mentioned that the “visions” come about at least once every other day and that they work at a paint company, if that's at all important. What are your thoughts?]

The psychiatrist hummed. “Memories are resurfacing relatively often… I highly doubt that this is the work of the Institute. I also didn't notice any puncture wounds.”

Blink. [Wait. What do you mean, no puncture wounds?]

"It's exactly as it sounds. The back of Jamjaw's neck was pristine."

Nightbeat ruminated over this for a second or two.

[It's not information creep, that's for sure. Jamjaw could also be lying, but there's no reason not to trust them right now. And unless some other folks figured out how to mess with brain modules, it's gotta still be Institute- _adjacent_ at least. Probably.] Nightbeat gently knocked his helm against Rung's. [The Senate keeps their tech on lockdown. Though, the thought that they might be able to do this without physically jacking in is, uh, pretty scary.]

"Incredibly scary." Rung paused. “Didn't they say that the missing mech was probably a scientist?”

[Ooh. You think he might've done it to himself or something? Beakers and petri dishes are more “chemistry” than “mnemosurgery” though. Quark can attest to that.] Nightbeat readjusted himself so his head was resting on Rung's lap.

“True. I suppose we have to wait until we learn more about them…”

[Mmm. Wake me up in an hour, would ya? I'm gonna need this nap.]

By the time Rung snapped out of his musings, Nightbeat was already in deep recharge, purring in his lap.

“Well. I don't really have a choice now, do I?” Rung smiled, leaning over to grab a random datapad from the little table.

Still, as he booted up the first chapter of _A Love Beyond the Stars_ , Rung couldn't stop thinking about the missing scientist. An illegal function, no doubt about it. As far as he knew, not a single beastformer has ever been alt-mode exempt into the intellectual class. That wasn't going to change anytime soon, especially not here in Rodion. Perhaps that was the reason why he was missing…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes place during nominus' primacy.
> 
> rung was initially meant to be the watson but tbh he's a lot more sherlock than nightbeat is in here. i also couldnt decide if i wanted their relationship to be ambiguous or if i wanted them to be husbands right off the bat so. partners!


End file.
